Suis-je belle ?

My friend just summarized this film perfectly:"I paid ten DM for this film and I can't even be upset about having wasted my money". This movie is completely German: every character which appears in it is introduced, explained and motivated. No holes in the plot, no surprises, no bad scenes as well. The acting is great, but hey, what do you expect if you throw a lot of "soul" and "drama" to a selection of Germany's finest actors.

If you are not German and never lived in this country, don't see this movie; it will appear dull and retarded. If you are German, you will enjoy it, laugh (a bit) and feel sad in the end. Just fine for a casual Saturday evening out with your girl-/boy-friend.

Summary of the plot: the movie is set partly in Spain and partly in Germany. All scenes are essentially dialogues between two of a bunch of characters that are all somehow related to each other. The web of their fates, loves, flirts, dramas is pulled tighter and tighter, but unlike your expectations no climax occurs. So you end up with a collection of short stories, which is where the script of the movie originated from (To read a truly fascinating book based on the same idea, try Ingo Schulzes 'Simple Stories' -- much better than the movie!). Apparently, Ms Doerrie made this film in order to memorate her late partner, who died during the first attempt to shoot it. This is why all the dialogues circle around the ever-hot topic of love, death & marriage. She hadn't had the courage and the understanding to do the film with two persons, so instead she multiplied the problems and characters as if to demonstrate that in the end we are all alike with our problems and our solutions. Heavy stuff ! And, being German, Ms Doerrie offers instantly the perfect solution: Stop being German and become Spanish! They got songs, dances, sun and know how to mourn and live...

I give this film 5 points, because it is so average and stubborn. I wished that once these directors dared and I could love or hate their films. Now they annoy me, but decently.

P.S.: If you are up for a good German movie, go see 'Lola rennt' by Tom Tykwer !

I've just seen "Bin ich schön?" today and I totally disagree with the other critic. I think this film is BEAUTIFUL (That's the better word to describe it) because it's made of small things and tries not to give a lesson or just entertain you for two hours, you will leave the cinema with your heart touched... No one had showed me Spain, the way Doris Dörrie did... Plain, simple and yet astonishing... Perhaps I understood her because I come from a country that lives of small rituals like Spain does. The music is also fantastic, like in every Dörrie film.

I think this is quite a nice movie. In a scene that is somewhere halfway (actually I bet it's precisely halfway) you get the clue you need: there's no beginning and no end in this movie, so don't bother yourself looking for it. Once this is taken for granted, you see some quite excellent scenes, in which you are in the thick of things of the life of some (more of less) loose connected people. There is humour, affection, love, lust and sadness, and most of the players are very convincing. The only character that could be missed in my opinion was Linda, played by Franka Potente: she is playing exactly the same character as she was in 'Lola rennt' (without the running). Just an irritatingly weird girl, with no real or convincing acts and emotions, except her singing her own flamenco song. If Franka Potente can't play a character unlike Lola, I'm sorry to say I've seen enough of her by now.

This movie deserves a better review than the previous one by Melendez from Brazil. It is true that the plot is complex and not easy to follow, but if you are looking for easy entertainment, this is not for you. There are some very mature sub-plots that will leave some viewers behind, empty, and in the dust. (If you care to look at the votes on this, the demographic breakdown is proof of this; the older the viewers, the higher the rating!) It takes a superb attention span and recall to get to the end of this film in one piece and then you might wonder where you started; but it is worth it. This movie is like a fascinating painting that you can't forget even tho it has some drips,runs,and smudges in it.

This movie knits a web of stories that revolve around the loveless wedding of a girl, concerning her mother and father, her sisters, her former boyfriend, the wedding party caterer, a girl accidentally met in a rainy evening, and the people these people meet: a Spanish man who brings the ashes of his dead German wife to Germany, to bring her to the rain and green grass she missed; an extravagant girl who seeks the attention of strangers by pretending she is handicapped or ill; the father's mistress who slashes her wrists in a clandestine visit to her lover's house; an abandoned old woman found by the younger sister in the airport.

The stories, located half in Germany and half in Spain, can be intensely poetic, or intensely brutal, or funny, or poignant, and make up an absorbing whole. All of them have to do with love, love being found, lost or hankered after. By the end of the movie the stories have not been brought to any closure; like in life, there are no neat endings.